Our next stop was called Hongya Cave. It was essentially another place to shop, but the shopping there is very different from our first stop. The building is essentially built into the cliff (as far as I understand). It has several floors, and it is interesting because the first floor is at street level on one side of the structure, while the top floor is at street level on the other side. Also, on the side that we entered from, there is a waterfall coming down from the cliff and paths/steps leading up to the waterfall. I was hanging out with Kia while we were at Hongya Cave, and we started by exploring near the waterfall, which was absolutely beautiful! 
Inside the shopping center, there were of course restaurants and food stands, but also vendors selling things like clothes, bags, jewelry, paintings, art, etc. It was a really cool place! After looking around a while, Kia went to the bathroom while I stayed at a stand looking at purses. Then, a group of people of about 5-10 people (about my age) came up to me wanting to take pictures with me. I think I was standing there for about 5 minutes while each of them got their turn taking a picture with me. Kia still hadn’t come back (turns out that she also stopped to buy a dress on her way to the bathroom) and another couple stopped to take a picture with me. After Kia came back, we went to the elevator to go to the top floor to meet the rest of our group. And of course another person wanted a picture with me before we got into the elevator. This kind of incident would happen to us all the time in Beijing and Xian, so it only makes sense that it would also happen in Chongqing, but it still one of those things that I find so bizarre. I understand, though, that because there is less diversity in China, it is a bigger deal for them when they see people who look different from them.
Another aspect of it that is so interesting is that we have three people in our group who people often mistake as Chinese: Kia, who is Hmong; Chris, who is Karen American (Karen is an ethnic group from Burma); and Cindy, who is Mexican American (although apparently people sometimes think Cindy is Russian…which none of us understand). So Kia, Chris and Cindy often have a different experience here than the rest of us because they are able to blend in more. There is also a downside though, because sometimes people don’t really believe or understand what they mean when they say they are American. Being white in China also has its ups and downs. People here seem to like and be fascinated by foreigners, but the downside is that there is no way to ever blend. Even if I were to become fluent in Mandarin and live in China, I would still be an outsider.
But anyway, after Hongya Cave we went to the “Times Square of Chongqing”. It was interesting to go there because it really did remind me of Times Square. There were so many name brand stores and so many people! About six of us ended up just sitting in a Starbucks for most of our time there because we didn’t really feel like window shopping (and we couldn’t afford to actually buy anything). When we went to meet the rest of our group though, we had another interesting experience. Two middle-aged/older men came up to us and started talking to us. They- once again- thought Cindy and Kia were Chinese and were confused when they wouldn’t/couldn’t speak Chinese back to them. Cindy can speak some Chinese, but the dialect in Chongqing is really hard to understand so she didn’t talk to them that much. A lady who spoke English came by, though, and started to translate for us. It was kind of funny how fascinated they were.
I definitely want to go back down to downtown Chongqing another day!
